The Door to December

and I sit on his lap and we talk about school, and I—'
     'That's enough,' he said, feeling as if he had stepped into a corner of Hell, where knowing the local customs was an obligation to live by them. He preferred not knowing.
     He wanted to sweep the photographs off the table, smash the glass that shielded them, pull the other pictures off the mantel and throw them in the fireplace and light them with a match. But he knew that he would be of no help to Regine merely by destroying those reminders of Hoffritz. The hateful man was dead, yes, but he would live for years in this woman's mind, like a malevolent troll in a secret cave. Dan touched her face again, but briefly and tenderly this time. 'Regine, what do you do with your time, your days, your life?'
     She shrugged.
     'Do you go to movies, dancing, out to dinner with friends — or do you just sit here, waiting for someone to need you?'
     'Mostly I stay here,' she said. 'I like it here. This is where Willy wanted me.'
     'And what do you do for a living?'
     'I do what they want.'
     'You've got a degree in psychology, for God's sake.'
     She said nothing.
     'Why did you finish your degree at UCLA if you didn't intend to use it?'
     'Willy wanted me to finish. It was funny, you know. They threw him out, those bastards at the university, but they couldn't throw me out so easily. I was there to remind them about Willy. That pleased him. He thought that was a terrific joke.'
     'You could do important work, interesting work.'
     'I'm doing what I was made for.'
     'No. You aren't. You're doing what Hoffritz said you were made for. That's very different.'
     'Willy knew,' she said. 'Willy knew everything.'
     'Willy was a rotten pig,' he said.
     'No.' Tears formed in her eyes again.
     'So they come here and use you, hurt you.' He grabbed her arm, pulled up the sleeve of her robe, revealing the bruise that he had spotted earlier and the rope burns at her wrist. 'They hurt you, don't they?'
     'Yeah, in one way or another, some of them more than others. Some of them are better at it. Some of them make it feel so sweet.'
     ' Why do you put up with it?'
     'I like it.'
     The air seemed even more oppressive than it had a few minutes ago. Thick, moist, heavy with a grime that couldn't be seen, a filth that settled not on the skin but on the soul. Dan didn't want to breathe it in. It was dangerously corrupting air.
     'Who pays your rent?' he asked.
     'There is no rent.'
     'Who owns the house?'
     'A company.'
     'What company?'
     'What can I do for you?'
     'What company?'
     'Let me do something for you.'
     'What company?' he persisted.
     'John Wilkes Enterprises.'
     'Who's John Wilkes?'
     'I don't know.'
     'You've never had a man here named John?'
     'No.'
     'How do you know about this John Wilkes Enterprises?'
     'I get a check from them every month. A very nice check.'
     Shakily, Dan got to his feet.
     Regine was visibly disappointed.
     He looked around, spotted the suitcases by the door, which he had noticed when he'd first come in. 'Going away?'
     'For a few days.'
     'Where?'
     'Las Vegas.'
     'Are you running, Regine?'
     'What would I be running from?'
     'People are getting killed because of what happened in that gray room.'
     'But I don't know what happened in the gray room, and I don't care,' she said. 'So I'm safe.'
     Staring down at her, Dan realized that Regine Savannah Hoffritz had a gray room all of her own. She carried it with her wherever she went, for her gray room was where the real Regine was locked away, trapped, imprisoned.
     He said, 'Regine, you need help.'
     'I need to be what you want.'
     'No. You need—'
     'I'm fine.'
     'You need counseling.'
     'I'm free. Willy taught me how to be free.'
     'Free from what?'
     'Responsibility. Fear. Hope. Free from everything.'
     'Willy didn't free you. He enslaved you.'
     'You don't understand.'
     'He was a sadist.'
     'There's nothing wrong with that.'
     'He got inside your mind, twisted you. We're not talking about some half-baked psychology